Divergence
by MizSphinx
Summary: What's life without a purpose? Severus often asks himself this question. And when, one day, Hermione returns to Hogwarts, Severus grows to realise the answer is no longer important. Disregards Epilogue.


**AN: **Thanks goes to fury-shashka for cleaning this up to squeaky perfection! **  
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**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter and/or the characters of the original story created by J.K. Rowling._  
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**-.-.-**

**Chapter One**

_Home_.

Hermione covered her mouth and blew on her gloved hands, hoping to heat her cold fingers. Mid-November had brought an unforgiving, unceasing chill that burrowed deep into the marrow of the bones. Even the most advanced warming spells were useless. Hermione shuddered – literally – at the thought of the freezing temperatures late December or early January would undoubtedly bring.

_Home_, she thought again with a burgeoning equilibrium she'd not felt in a long, long time. She gazed up at the looming structure of Hogwarts. Though it was already dark, torches had been lit, and she admired how it still remained impressive and beautiful despite the broken, gouged-out sections, and the blackened spots on the walls. Battle scars. Testament to the War that had been fought and won.

Won. What was winning when so much had been lost? Fred was dead. Remus was dead. Tonks was dead. Sirius was dead. Dumbledore was dead. So many _dead_. She was nineteen years old and she felt a weariness befitting that of an octogenarian. Her childhood – her friends' childhoods – had been snatched away from them, and thrown into a dark abyss similar to the Veil. Remnants of it echoed, but it remained forever irretrievable.

Six months ago, Harry had defeated Voldemort. Six months later, she still didn't feel victorious. Victory was not waking up most mornings with a scream in her throat and tears on her face and the nightmare – real events of the past – that she'd woken from still present and clear in her mind. Victory was not finding her parents, restoring their memory, yet still unable to fully consider them her family. Victory was not this lost, claustrophobic feeling that accosted her unsuspectingly, frequently, forcing her to ask herself, "Now that it's all over, what's next?"

And so, she had returned to this place. Her 'home away from home.' No. Just 'home.' Her home. The Burrow was not her home. Her parents' house was not her home. _Hogwarts_ was her home. She had been born here. She had grown up here. And in order for her to discover her future, she first needed to revisit her past.

She inhaled deeply, the breeze fresh and icy and heavy with the scent of mud and trees. She felt rejuvenated. As if her senses had been clogged but were now unburdened. She had worried that returning to Hogwarts would be a mistake. Harry was not here. Ron was not here. No-one wanted to be here but her. Still, despite the anxiety, despite the knowledge that things would not be the same, she'd come, and she did not regret it.

_Yet_, said a softer voice. _You've not even stepped foot inside._

Tugging the scarf tighter around her neck, Hermione began the walk up the dirt track towards the castle. She had arrived by a special Port-Key owled to her by Professor McGonagall. Though the Ministry had offered all seventh year student participants of the War an immediate certificate stating the completion of their Hogwarts education, Hermione had decided to finish her education formally. Despite her thirst for overachievement dimming considerably, the scholar inside demanded she do things right.

For the next six months, she would be an 'eighth year.' _Gods_. She would be the oldest student there. A veritable grandmother amidst the babes. She sincerely doubted any of her contemporaries had returned, and the idea of striking up new friendships turned her stomach as much as the very real possibility of suffering six months of lonesomeness. She really missed Harry and Ron.

Had this been a good idea after all? What was she to gain from returning? Why not take her certificate of eight Acceptables the Ministry had proffered and find a semi-decent job somewhere? She could take up Ron's offer to further their relationship. In time, they'd marry. In more time, they'd have children. Life would return to some semblance of normality. The War's importance would eventually decrease. The fallen would not be forgotten, no, but the horrors of it all would no longer drive them to night terrors.

But that felt like giving up. Why struggle so hard to live, and then not live at all?

She now stood outside the entrance doors. The wind had become stronger, louder, trying to unwind her scarf and snatch at her hat. The weather was getting worse, yet uncertainty still gripped her.

_I can leave_. _I can leave right now. I can turn around and –_

But the decision was made for her when, to her surprise, the door opened on its own.

**-.-.-**

Severus detested winter. Had he the power, he would've banished it to non-existence along with the equally heinous season of summer. He lived primarily in the dungeons, and he thoroughly enjoyed that setup. It was dark and secluded, and these attributes were prime deterrents for unwanted visitors. Therefore, all interferences—regardless if they were borne from Mother Nature herself—in his comfort were strongly opposed.

In the summertime it became unbearably hot. In the wintertime, it became unbearably cold. During moments when the temperatures were particularly terrible, and temperature modifying charms refused to work, Severus believed some bastard, perhaps Salazar himself, had placed some kind of spell on the place. _Especially_ the room he inhabited. And though he often complained to Minerva, even hinted these things contributed to his persistent surliness – a lie, of course – she often suggested he 'move to another room.'

_Ridiculous_.

Today was one of the worst days yet. It was too cold in the dungeons, so he had been forced to eat supper in the Great Hall. He loathed this as much as the winter. He despised the way conversations of the fellow professors became hushed and stilted in his company, as if he cared about their droning about subjects that did not interest or concern him; the way they sneaked glances at him, glances filled with doubt and suspicion and sometimes disdain; the way they pretended to ignore him yet were so obviously mindful of his presence.

Severus did not give a rat's arse about them, and he didn't doubt the feelings were mutual. That was why it boggled him, _angered_ him, that they'd struggled to keep him alive. He'd been knocking quite avidly on Death's door when Nagini had bit him, and he'd been more than ready to be invited inside Death's abode. So why deter him, then? Why yank him away back to the living, and then leave him to suffer the fate he'd long yearned to escape?

Loneliness. Rejection.

His duty in this life had been achieved. Lily's son, the impressively dimwitted, stupidly heedless, irksomely disobedient Harry Potter was alive and well and kicking, and would remain just like that until his moronic habits resurfaced and got him killed somehow or the other. Yes, the boy was alive, and Voldemort was dead, and Dumbledore was dead. And here he remained, the puppet who lay still and purposeless. _Useless_, now that his master's – _masters'_ – strings had been severed.

What was a life without purpose? How did one move forwards when there wasn't any incentive to do so?

Severus stabbed at his scalloped potatoes. It was never good to philosophise on a hungry stomach. It made for specious statements.

"Severus, I haven't received your schedule as yet. You're aware it's due this Thursday?"

Severus exhaled heavily through his nostrils.

_Addendum_: what was a life with a purpose one absolutely abhorred down to the tiniest hair on one's head? Was it better, then, to have no purpose at all?

He should've told her no. He could've begged off with the excuse that he was still recovering from his ailment. He could've been straightforward, could've told her to bugger off and find some ignorant sap to be her new Potions professor. But perhaps he'd suffered so much torture in his lifetime that he'd become acclimatised to a point where he willingly accepted it. This could only explain his outrageous decision to accept Minerva's request to teach her new batch of nitwits due this school season.

Or temporary insanity. After all, Nagini's poisonous bite had kept him in a delirious fit for nearly three weeks.

He settled his fork down on the plate with a resolute clink. The idea of teaching had robbed him of his appetite.

"I'm aware, Minerva," he said, his voice sounding loud in the quiet room. Everyone had grown silent. "You'll receive it by Wednesday evening."

Minerva nodded once from where she sat at the middle of the table, looking every bit the stern headmistress she strove to appear.

Severus dropped his napkin on his plate and rose to his feet. Cold as it was outside, some fresh air would do him good. If he remained at the table, Minerva and Poppy – the only two who probably _did_ give a rat's arse about him – would inevitably try to lure him into conversation, and his mood had plummeted to a point where the slightest provocation would loosen his tongue to say something insulting or callous. He usually didn't care to restrain himself, but he was unwilling to play 'Hate the Evil Git' today.

He didn't bother excusing himself. In quiet, steady strides, he walked past the long, empty Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables, made a right into the wide main entrance area, and headed directly for the door. Outside, the wind found a voice and a pair of hands. It wailed around the castle, batting against the windows, pelting tiny stones against the glass. It dawned on Severus, judging by the sounds, that his stay outside would be brief. _No matter_, he thought as he pulled the door open.

Something slammed into him, the wind the impetus behind this _something_. It shoved against him, as though the wind was determined to meld him and 'the something' together. It tottered to the left, about to fall, and when Severus' hands instinctively went around it, he realised 'it' was actually a woman.

"Ohmpf!" snorted the woman against his chest, and the heat of her breath seeped through his robes and touched his flesh. Her hands grabbed his upper arms to hold herself steady, and his hands tightened around her waist.

The wind, not quite finished with its mischief, grabbed the woman's woolly hat and sent it careening off and away across the expanse of the grounds. The woman cried out.

"My hat!"

She lifted her hand to her head of short curly hair. She raised her gaze to meet his, and Severus grew momentarily confused, because surely he was not staring at –

"Professor…?"

- _Granger?_

Clutched tight in his embrace, her body warm and pleasant against his, his ex-student, Hermione Granger.

**-.-.-**

**AN:** Hmm. My first full-length SSHG fic. I don't think this is going to be long. The plot is hardly original either, but this ship was my very first love and I owe them a fic. So here I go. Hope you lot will come along for the ride. :)


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